Friday, July 12, 2013

William H. Lytle: Remembering gallant poet-warrior who fell at Chickamauga

Brig. Gen. William
Haines Lytle, son of pioneers, man of letters, warrior of old, spoke these
gallant words as a horde of Confederates surrounded his brigade on the bloody
battlefield at Chickamauga:

"If
I must die, I will die as a gentleman. All right, men, we can die but once.
This is the time and place. Let us charge."

Lytle, on horseback, led
a determined but doomed counterattack on Sept. 20, 1863. He was shot in the
spine and subsequently in the head. The Cincinnati, Ohio, hero and popular poet-warrior handed his sword
to a soldier before dying of his wounds.

His Union comrades were
forced from the field, leaving Lytle’s remains lying among the Georgia pines.

And then something
remarkable happened.

Confederate troops, some
of whom he knew from service in the Mexican-American War, posted an honor guard
around Lytle’s remains before they were returned to Federals. His poems were
reportedly read around campfires that evening.

Lytle had been twice wounded in previous Civil War battles and was a prisoner of war for a brief time. Admiring officers from the 10th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with whom Lytle served at the beginning of the conflict, only weeks before the Battle of Chickamauga had presented him a gold meal, decorated with an emerald and a star of diamonds.

Lytle's coat (Cincinnati Museum Center)

It wasn’t just his
bravery that accorded such an honor at Chickamauga.

Lytle, 36, was known across
North and South for his poetry, much of which was composed before the war. The general continued to write during the war.

Lytle’s most famous
composition, “Antony and Cleopatra,” was published a few years before
Confederate guns opened up on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

I
am dying, Egypt, dying;

Hark!
the insulting foeman's cry;

They
are coming; quick, my falchion !

Let
me front them ere I die.

Ah,
no more amid the battle

Shall
my heart exulting swell;

Isis
and Osiris guard thee,

Cleopatra, Rome,
farewell!

Lytle’s messages of
mortality and man were popular during the Victorian era.

The area on the Chickamauga
battlefield where the general led his brigade is known appropriately as Lytle
Hill.

The monument, a pyramid
of artillery shells, is down to one level after years of vandalism and the use
of some of the cannonballs to repair other memorials.

This Sept. 20, the fully restored monument will be
dedicated at a solemn ceremony marking the 150th anniversary of the
momentous battle in northern Georgia, which ended in a Southern victory.

Among those attending
will be members of the General William H. Lytle Camp #10 of
the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCV), which also raised money
for the project.

That contingent may be
bringing descendants of the Lytle family, which was among the founding fathers
of Cincinnati. Lytle was a bachelor.

Glass and others say the
treatment accorded to Lytle’s body is an early example of North and South
coming together.

“That’s a great story
and it goes to the heart of what happened here after the battle – reunification,”
she recently told the Civil War Picket.

Lytle tactic books, medal (Cincinnati Museum Center)

The Cincinnati Museum
Center, beginning last weekend and continuing through Oct. 27, has an exhibit of items from its collection marking the city’s involvement in the Civil War
during 1863.

Among the Lytle items
are his frock coat, sword, gold medal, liquor cabinet and tall boots.

Lytle was a lawyer and
politician before the Civil War. His grandfather founded Williamsburg, Ohio,
and his father was a well-known orator and Ohio congressman.

“Called Will by friends
and family, Lytle was described as slight in build, but well developed with
gray eyes and a resolute character,” according to a 2008 article in the Murfreesboro
(Tenn,) Post.

The article said the
chivalrous Lytle received is gift of prose from his mother and his eloquence
from his father. Lytle provided vivid details of his wartime service in Mexico
and other aspects of his life and studies.

From “When the Long Shadows”:

Ah! whereso'er the closing scene may find me,

'Mid friends or foemen or in deserts lone,

May there be some of those I leave behind me

To shed a tear for me when I am gone.

Lytle liquor cabinet, boots (Cincinnati Museum Center)

Lytle was wounded in September 1861 at Carnifex Ferry and in
October 1862 at Perryville, where he was taken prisoner before an exchange shortly
afterward. The Ohioan was given brigade command in November 1862.

The poet-warrior’s funeral in Cincinnati weeks after the
Battle of Chickamauga was a major event,
said Kerry Langdon, past commander of the Lytle Camp of the SUVCV.

“His family is a
favorite family in the history of Cincinnati, Ohio,” said Langdon. “He was a
learned man, a very articulate poet.”

Lytle Park is among
several Cincinnati venues named for the general.

Langdon said the Sept.
20 ceremony will include a tribute to Lytle’s poetry.

From “Lines
to My Sisters”:

“In
vain for me the applause of men,
The Laurel won by sword or pen,
But for the hope, so dear and sweet,
To lay my trophies at your feet.”